


Orchard

by lynndyre



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-13 20:47:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29284764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: Staycation in Gondolin
Relationships: Ecthelion of the Fountain/Glorfindel
Comments: 9
Kudos: 12
Collections: 2021 My Slashy Valentine





	Orchard

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Oshun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oshun/gifts).



> Inspired by Tolkien changing his mind and deciding that Glorfindel, Ecthelion, and Egalmoth shouldn't be the ones accompanying Aredhel on grounds they would have done the job properly.

Ecthelion is just beginning the last of his altered rosters when a golden cloud invades his office with all the insistent ambiance of the early summer sun.

"We have been uninvited from our quest, my friend!" Glorfindel perches one hip on Ecthelion's desk and leans full across it to reach his face, with warm hands and a kiss that tastes like clean water. There are beads of spray from Ecthelion's courtyard fountain caught in the spill of his hair. It takes an embarrassingly long moment for Ecthelion to surface from both kiss and planning to give answer to Glorfindel's words.

"What?" 

"The White Lady has prevailed upon her brother, and convinced him that he must keep all his captains within the city. He cannot afford to send so many of us away from the city's defense, and so perforce the lady Aredhel will go with less 'essential' guards."

Ecthelion breathes, pushes back away from the planning that has occupied so much of his last week, planning for their absence, for a mission apparently now no longer their own. Of course Aredhel would prefer to take with her a retinue she more clearly outranks, but-

"Of her own choosing?"

"No, he has not given in quite so far. He means to send her with some few from among our three houses: yours, mine, and Egalmoth's. Those who will answer to his will, and not hers."

"Do we know yet who?"

"He has given it to us to choose from our people, and he will have final approval. Egalmoth had someone in mind already, I will have to consider."

"But not you or I."

Glorfindel shook his head. "Neither we nor Egalmoth. I think, at a guess, he may be pleased not to go."  
Glorfindel does not say so of himself. And Ecthelion feels the redirection churn below his throat, unexpected and strangely unpalatable. The prospect of escorting the White Lady's whims against the direction of the king's standing orders to remain within the city was not one he'd initially relished, but now to have it taken away, and with it the prospect of time spent in the wider world--

Glorfindel's eyes show the same conflict, the easy, friendly blue shadowed with grey even as his mouth tilts into a ready smile.

"Choose who you will send." He taps the parchment of Ecthelion's rosters. "If nothing else, we have planned ourselves a vacation. Let us take a day or two away from things."

Ecthelion captures the encroaching fingers between his own, and weaves them together, before pulling Glorfindel down to give his assent.

***

On the day, Ecthelion watches Aredhel depart; the small retinue riding out away from the city proper, until it reaches the last gate and disappears beyond. Aquiescence has done its best to become acceptance. When Turgon dismisses them, he seeks for Glorfindel among the crowd. He whistles a songbird call, and gets a half-trilled answer, and a laughing embrace from behind. 

"Now, what shall we do with our sudden absence of duties?"

***

They make their escape in the late morning, with food and drink and the sun already high as Ecthelion drops his reins at the last moment and ducks back inside for his flute. They ride where impulse takes them, staying within the walls. They dodge by turns the city markets, the training grounds, the guard posts. No part of Gondolin is unknown, the city's mapped streets and ways and defenses live always in the back of both their minds, but each of them have their own well trodden paths, and little reason from decade to decade to stray beyond them. Except for today.

The original orchard plantings have grown, fruited, died away, and new trees have grown again since the city's founding. The orchards themselves have moved, as the arable land is tended and cultivation moved to use, to rest, or to replenish it by turns. Now as they reach the outermost trees, they are beginning to fruit once more, branches just starting to dip beneath the weight of small, unripe stone fruits.

The ground is soft under the trees. 

They eat early season berries, sweet with the sun, and cheeses and soft breads. Their water skins, when Ecthelion tastes them, have been filled with a cordial of elderflower and lime. Glorfindel lies down, long limbs finding a place between the twisting roots. Light, through the blowing curtains of leaves, dapples his skin and catches and glitters in the small gems of his hairpiece and bracelets, and in the gold-embroidered flowers of his shirt-yoke, contrasting the berry-dark shadows of his fingers, of his lips.

It is nothing at all like a mission outside the city. There is no danger, no quest, nothing to draw their attention away from each other or the little bit of Arda that surrounds them. The sky, the same that covers every part of the hidden city, holds a different cast. Ecthelion closes his eyes, leaning back against the warm tree-trunk for a space to listen. Then he reaches for his flute.

He starts with music, trailing from the last song to get stuck in his head to an old favourite, one his fingers know without thinking. A fat baby mountain jay, as big as its parent, squawks angrily at the flute, and Ecthelion directs his next song to the demanding little creature, and a finishing trilled salute to the returning adult bird.

When he lays his flute aside, Glorfindel urges him down until finally he goes willingly; lowering himself to lie at an angle, head pillowed on Glorfindel's belly to look up into the leaves. Glorfindel's fingers busy themselves in his hair.

"I miss the forests where we rode for days. The green grasslands, where the sky falls down and down to meet a far horizon. I do not miss the killing. But I do miss the adventure."

Ecthelion hums his agreement, before the prismatic stones of Glorfindel's bracelet catch the sun again, and the reflected light finds his eyes. "And how much adventure are you going to get up to in that wardrobe? You can't adventure if you look like your clothing was eaten by a hoard of gold embroidery. Every enemy in middle earth would see you sparkle from a thousand miles away."

"We could be entirely subtle and adventuresome!" 

Beyond the orchard's edge, Glorfindel's horse tosses her head, and the bells of her bridle chime with the same laughter as Ecthelion, as Glorfindel himself, vibrating through his belly.

"Adventuresome and dramatic, then. Adventuresome and well-dressed, and beautifully arrayed."

Ecthelion rolls over, so that his chin is pillowed on his arms, and they on Glorfindel's chest. "That, I would believe. Perhaps that is why Aredhel must needs find other accompaniment, the three of us might outshine even her raiment."

Glorfindel snorts.

"Where would you go, if it was your adventure? If there were no constraints."

Glorfindel's fingers have found their way into his hair again, and Ecthelion leans into the caress.

"I miss other cities. The spices we used to be able to get, in Aman. I miss crowds of strangers, and feeling always on the edge of something new to discover."

"I miss the beaches. The bays. I love the fountains, but I miss the great waters."

"Even the ones we walked, where the mountains dropped straight down into rocks and cold water?"

"Even there, with the freezing water grey and green and impenetrable and wild." Glorfindel shivers, despite the afternoon sun. 

Ecthelion lets Glorfindel wrap arms around him, pulling him full up against his body, and returns the embrace, nosing aside an abundance of golden hair. The scent of yellow blossoms clings close to Glorfindel's skin and Ecthelion presses kisses beneath his ear. 

The dark cloth of Ecthelion's deep blue tunic is soaking in the sun's heat, he can feel it in patches on his back, over one shoulderblade, and at his hip, while the branches direct a halfhearted afternoon breeze across their legs. Glorfindel hooks one ankle over Ecthelion's calf, and the altered angle steals both of their breath.

"It's been a long time, since-"

"Out of doors?"

Glorfindel's "Yes" comes out as a groan, and his body ripples under Ecthelion's, matched length for length. "I've missed you in the sunlight, too. A much more immediate quest, with a -aah -- much more tempting prize." 

His hand in Ecthelion's hair tightens, tugging him close enough to kiss, and Ecthelion meets him full willing.


End file.
